Watch San Leandro's Assembly District 18 Candidate Forum

If you weren’t able to hop on Zoom this past Saturday, no worries! Because our San Leandro hosting organizations have put up the recording for your convenience and reference.

Click over to https://youtu.be/n3IMmOD9m4U to watch the entire forum from introductions through the entire Q&A, as well as access to the side-bar chat conversations! (You can spot yours truly debunking points raised by someone from the audience who supports access to assault weapons.) The recording allows you to skip back and forth with relative ease to parse through each question and every response.

Before you cast your ballot for this special election primary by June 29, you should watch the forum. Listen to what the candidates did (and, in some cases, did not) say on a variety of problems posed by the hosting organizations, as well as general inquiries from those in the audience.

Here were my top 10 questions to consider when reviewing the candidate’s statements:

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1. If elected, what specific steps will you take to address climate-related issues affecting our district, specifically drought, wildfires, heat waves, air quality, rising sea levels, flood hazards, and earthquakes?

2. If elected, would you support reparations for Black and Indigenous peoples in our district? If so, what kind of reparations would thee be and how would you work to do that?

3. What are your exact policy positions that will improve justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in our district?

4. What aspects of your professional background do you believe make you qualified for this position and will directly enable you to deliver on your campaign goals?

5. What is something particular to you that makes you uniquely positioned to be successful as our district’s representative in the State Assembly?

6. If elected, what specific steps will you take to reimagine public safety that relies on social services, community-based organizations, policy advocacy groups, and other grassroots groups, instead of the traditional policing that has failed so many people in our district? For instance, building better systems through legislation like the CRISES Act, AB 2054.

7. If elected, what specific steps will you take to help our homeless, unsheltered, and/or unhoused neighbors? For instance, free transitional as well as permanent supportive housing for unsheltered folks, taxes on vacant properties that are statutorily encumbered for providing services to homeless people, and ending NIMBY exclusionary zoning laws. 

8. If elected, what specific steps will you take to secure a higher minimum wage that is not just a living wage, but a flourishing wage to lift people out of poverty without bankrupting small local businesses?

9. Will you make explicit statements in support of progressive ideals, such as naming brutal police officers who’ve killed BIPOC and calling for them to face justice, such as calling in and calling out elected officials thwarting programs aimed at helping underserved communities, such as demanding answers publicly and directly about unjust disparities from local and state agency leaders in our prison system, our healthcare system, and corporate businesses in our state?

10. So many of the problems we’re talking about today have been allowed to continue to exist as a result of limited choices creating poor leadership over decades of successively elected officials. This is because too few of the people we need in politics are able to pursue it. In San Leandro, for instance, it costs around $30,000 to run a competitive campaign for a full-time job as a city council member that makes only part-time pay. To that end: how will you help others climb up the ladder behind you into elected office? Will you support and champion fundamental changes to our election system, such as ending the influence of pay-to-play, dark money, corporate contributions, astroturf special interests? Will you take action to remove barriers for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, women, religious minorities, low-income, and immigrants who wish to run? I am specifically thinking about publicly funded elections programs that go beyond 2008’s AB583 for a California Fair Elections Act and incorporate best practices from cities like Denver and Seattle, as well as the Brennan Center for Justice.

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All in all, this was a great event and I want to give special thanks to the folks who put this event together, specifically Dr. Hoi Fei Mok, SLPDefund, SLATE, Unity in the Community, the San Leandro Democratic Club, San Leandro 2050, Our Revolution San Leandro, and Justice 4 Steven Taylor.

Take note and take care.